Hasta La Ideas

Faceted concrete blocks protrude from one side of this sports hall in Croatia, while its bumpy southern and western walls were made by casting concrete panels over a bed of stones (+ slideshow).

Designed by Croatian architect Idis Turato, the building is located in the small town of Krk, on the island of the same name, and it functions as both a sports hall for a primary school and an events space for the local community.

The building sits within a new public square surrounded by a mixture of churches, monasteries and school buildings, and the architect created different concepts for each of the building’s elevations to correspond with the varying architectural styles.

“One of the direct inspirations for all the facades and external walls of the hall were the existing walls of the surrounding monasteries,” Turato told Dezeen.

“The wall is the main concept of the hall, being different regarding the context that is in front of it,” he continued. “Each one of those monastery walls, dating back from different periods, have different textures and also different sizes.”

The northern side of the building fronts the town square and features a faceted concrete surface with a terrazzo finish and sliced openings that form windows.

“The monoliths on the facade that face the square are monumental and dominant,” said the architect. “They accentuate the representative character of the newly formed large public square in town, and are a direct reply towards the high towers on the square.”

The southern and western facades are built over the archeological remains of another monastery and a chapel, which were uncovered during the construction process. These dry stone walls informed the design of the new concrete elevations built on top, which were cast against small stones to create a textured surface that inverts the appearance of the existing structures.

“These ‘concrete innards’, as we call them, are a negative of the dry stone walls,” explained Turato. “Our wish was to make contemporary but simple concrete prefabricates that are visually different and recognisable, but also blend in as a continuation of the existing walls and their textures.”

The remaining elevation faces the school and is finished in white render to match the appearance of its neighbour, which was designed by Idis Turato a few years earlier.

The interior of the building is decorated in bold colours that stand out against the raw concrete interior. A first-floor balcony provides seating during matches and events, plus an underground tunnel creates a private route into the school.

Slabs of red terrazzo provide the surface of the surrounding square, intended to contrast with the pale colour of the concrete walls.

Here’s a project description from Turato Architecture:

Sports Hall and Public Square in Krk

One of the main focuses of the Turato Architects’ Hall and Square project in Krk was to finish an architectural dialogue started way back in 2005, when Idis Turato completed an elementary school, Fran Krsto Frankopan (with his former studio “Randić Turato”).

The new hall, which opened shortly before the summer of 2013, is situated in the very vicinity of the above-mentioned school, just across a narrow pedestrian street. The completion of the new sports building and public square was a crown achievement of the architect’s quest to complete an integral urban ensemble on top of Krk’s old town, thereby creating a newly defined focal point of high importance.

The newly built hall, aside from being a gym facility for the school pupils – who can now easily access it through an underground corridor – aims to meet demands of the local community as well, housing sports events as well as future cultural activities and public festivities on a larger scale. This is the reason why the north-eastern corner of the hall’s facade opens up onto the square, providing functional continuity of passing through and enabling them to become almost one.

The school-hall-square assembly is surrounded by several churches and monasteries, as well as by two tall church towers that act as the square’s vertical accents. Together, they all define and describe this wide public space, which, depending on occasion, can function both as a secular and an ecclesiastical pedestrian zone.

On the very site of the new hall there used to be an old student dorm, which had been used in past as a gym facility for the school. Prior to the hall construction it had to be demolished. The demolition, however, unearthed several new and important archaeological discoveries on the site, thus creating a whole new context for the hall itself.

All that had been found on the site had to be preserved as discovered. The architects took this fact to be crucial in redefining the concept according to the new input. This affected directly the very organisational scheme of the project. The excavated and preserved church and monastery walls were to become integral parts of the new building, with new walls and facades of the hall emerging directly from the restored, older ones.

Yet another contextual element was important in forming the shape and size of the building. These are the high walls, seen throughout the old town of Krk, especially around the aforementioned monasteries, enclosing the town lots, lining the narrow streets of the town. These site-specific structures surround the hall itself as well.

Behind these walls different stories are taking place daily, balancing between the public and the private, depending on the usage of the space enclosed. The high walls of the western hall facade, next to the Franciscan monastery, are then but a continuation of these town alleys. This is where the story of the walls, their origin, context and their shape began, resulting in variety of the facade walls, formally corresponding to the context, input and location.

Although seemingly set “back”, on secondary surfaces (the western alley and southern facade), the most recognisable and by far the most unique element of the hall itself is a wall consisting of original and striking prefabricated concrete elements. The architect named these the innards due to their origin and their fabrication, and the ambiguity of the impression they leave upon the viewer, due to a formal factor of its (un)attractiveness.

The innards are in fact unique precast elements produced as a negative of a dry stone wall, or more precisely – made by placing stones in a wooden mould, covering them with a PVC foil and pouring concrete over it all. In this way the negative of the stones forms the “face” of the precast element. This inverse building process, a simple and basic fabrication with a distinct visual impact, is an invention of the hall’s author. It happened as a result of researching simple building materials with a crafty bricklayer, with whom the architect had collaborated on several projects in the past as well.

On the other hand, the most representative facade of the hall, the one visually dominating the square, is the facade constructed out of six impressively large concrete monoliths, weighing up to 23 tons. The monolithic blocks are finished off with a layer of ‘terrazzo’, which is an ancient technique usually used for floor finishes, requiring hours of polishing by hand.

Here, however, the terrazzo is redefined and used vertically, fittingly renamed into a “vertical terrazzo”. While this sudden vertical use of the finish creates a shiny and finely shaded facade, its “normal” use, on horizontal surfaces, is recontextualised and rethought once again, since this finish, usually ‘reserved’ for interiors, is now used for exterior surfaces of the public square.

The red colour of the square’s terrazzo floor panels is in contrast to the lightness of the hall’s facade. Its smoothness and slip-resistance is achieved by application of a layer of epoxy after polishing.

The fourth facade, facing the school, with its formal look and finish (done in plaster lime mortar) confirms that the new building remains in a direct communication with the existing educational facility, sharing its function.

The post Concrete-clad sports hall by Idis Turato
features both faceted and bumpy facades appeared first on Dezeen.

Imagine driving a Lamborghini, but never breaking 90 miles an hour. Rolling down the road in one of the world’s top cars would still be quite an enjoyable experience, but that isn’t what the machine was designed to do. The same can be…

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Croatian design studio Brigada was inspired by cigarettes and smoke rings to create glowing cylindrical rooms for an exhibition about the culture of smoking (+ movie).

The Culture of Smoking: From Taboo to Taboo took place at the Gliptoteka gallery in Zagreb and focussed on the role smoking has played in Croatian art, photography, graphic design and film over the last 150 years.

Brigada was interested in the idea of smoking as a social taboo. Although a ban on smoking in enclosed public places in Croatia was lifted in 2009, there are still strict regulations on the promotion of smoking in the country.

In response, the designers wanted to hide the paintings, photographs and artefacts on show. They created a series of glowing fabric cylinders, which they describe as “reminiscent of smoke circles or oversized cigarettes”.

The interior of each space was lit from above to avoid any shadows, plus artworks and prints were hung from scaffolding structures, as they couldn’t be mounted onto the walls.

The walls of the surrounding gallery were painted black to contrast with the brightness of the white fabric. Curtains hung over the entrance to every room.

Past projects by Brigada include an installation for a book that can only be identified in the dark.

See more exhibition design on Dezeen, including an architecture exhibition with looping walls and a performance exhibition filled with concertinaed ribbons.

Photography is by Domagoj Kunić and Domagoj Blažević. The movie is by Red Studio.

Here’s some extra information from the designers:

The Culture of Smoking: From Taboo to Taboo / exhibition design

Brief

Glypthoteque HAZU, an art institution in Zagreb, Croatia, wanted to explore the link between smoking, art, and the concept of taboo – a hazy relationship made even more complex by Croatia’s strict laws on the promotion of tobacco. The resulting exhibition, The Culture of Smoking: From Taboo to Taboo, ­focuses on the role smoking has played in artistic and popular culture by bringing together paintings, posters, photographs, films and ephemera created over the last 150 years.

Idea

Taking inspiration from the phenomenon of smoke, the main goal of the agency Brigada was to recreate its very essence in the gallery space itself by completely altering a well-known exhibition space. Playing with the idea of taboo, their intention was to design an anti-exhibition – a display that hides the exhibits even from the museum itself.

Execution

They decided to create a ‘nonspace’ that plays with perception on different levels. By transforming and concealing all the existing elements of the gallery and painting the entire area black, the conventional exhibition space disappeared. Inside of it they built a completely new space, one that has no walls or ceilings, only cylindrical display rooms reminiscent of smoke circles or oversized cigarettes.

Softly illuminated from within, their enticing glow invites visitors to come take a closer look. But only after stepping into the space are the objects of taboo revealed. With no walls to hang paintings on, they designed modern easels that hint at the moment of artistic creation – usually in a smoke-filled studio. A special system of freestanding display cases and slender cylindrical rods exhibits smaller objects.

Ceiling lights illuminate the exhibits without creating any shadows to provide a contrast between the outer (black) and inner (white) space without disrupting the ephemeral feeling of the whole exhibition.

The display rooms create an atmosphere charged with mystery, discovery, and sustained interest. Visitors excitedly move back and forth between display spaces, revisit their favorite rooms, and ultimately create their own path through the exhibition.

Design team:
Brigada – Damjan Geber (Creative Director), David Kabalin (Architect, Project Manager), Simon Morasi Piperčić (Product Designer), Marina Brletić (Architect), Kristina Jeren (Architect), Lorenzo Cetina (Assistant)
Bruketa&Žinić OM – Davor Bruketa, Nikola Žinić (Creative Directors), Zrinka Jugec (Account Director), Ana Baletić (Art Director), Branka Lovrić (Designer)

Curators: Igor Zidić, Feđa Vukić

The post The Culture of Smoking
by Brigada appeared first on Dezeen.

The trend for extreme cantilevers continues with this house in Croatia by architect Idis Turato, where one floor dramatically overhangs the other.

Nest and Cave House overlooks the sea in the Opatija Riviera, where houses typically follow a vernacular style with gabled profiles and clay roof tiles, but Idis Turato wanted to create a building with more of a dominance over the hillside.

“The main question is how to control the space encompassed; and subsequently how to develop selective control of encompassed space,” Turato says, explaining his concept to frame parts of the landscape using architecture.

The irregular angle of the cantilever divides the two storeys of the house into two distinct volumes. The ground floor is a rugged concrete building set into the lawn, while the steel frame of the upper level is coated with white cladding panels that help to create a lightweight structure.

An angled chimney acts as a lightwell for a central staircase, which sits at the meeting point of the two floors and connects living and dining rooms on the top floor with bedrooms downstairs.

We recently published proposals for a wine museum that projects from the side of a mountain, which prompted a few readers to question if cantilevers are old news.

Other cantilevers we’ve featured include a periscope-like office building and a museum at a Celtic burial mound.

See all our stories about cantilevers »

Here’s a project description from architect Iva Marčetić:

Nest and Cave House
Idis Turato

The hinterland of the Opatija Riviera in Croatia is dotted with villas (built within a century and a half). Their upper, front side reveals nothing but entrances beyond which we can only imagine their spaciousness.

Their scale and relation to the bay are entirely dependent on the seafront slope (perhaps, it is the tension arising from the assumption of something hidden what gives the spatial frame of Opatija’s hinterland its appeal).

Although the Nest and Cave remains typologically and morphologically true to the surrounding space as a whole, it develops its “hidden” side through the dialectics of domination over and subordination to the landscape.

So, the house and the place it renders are not structured solely by the slope onto which they are built (as it is the case with most villas in Opatija). Instead, it actively constructs the landscape and intertwines with it by laying down the ground level (landscape) and by placing on it an upper object which hovers above as a displaced level.

Therefore, the house consists of an entrenched concrete bunker (the sleeping area) on which a steel spatial grid structure is placed and which elongates into a 17 meter long console.

Despite it being constructed within a reductive registry of functions, with only two structural elements and with its apparent division into the sleeping and living area, the house creates a wondrous, ever shifting experience and interspaces.

This is achieved by a simple dislocation of the upper segment in relation to the lower one and by inscribing it into the depth of the parcel.

Above: entrance axo diagrams – click above for larger image

The dislocated upper part and its hypertrophic console express, by alternating the shadow and the hidden with openness and hospitality, the quintessential tension of a Mediterranean house: the battle of the sun and the shadow. The Nest and Cave house becomes a reinterpretation of its heritage by achieving a full form via projecting the object (the shadow) and opening the void in the body (landscape).

Above: space usage plan diagrams – click above for larger image

The console leaves behind a shadow which (depending on the time of day) gives volume to the living area (“the heart of the house”, as the author calls it) and, by alternating the intersection of its axes (as much as the angle of the sun will allow it), it shifts around thus constantly creating yet another intimate area of the house.

Above: lower level plan – click above for larger image

Through its fenestration facing away from the road and surrounding structures and by carefully framing the landscape that penetrates and dictates the depth or flatness of the interior, the visually (and statically) dominant white shape (the aluminum covered steel grid) invites the Kvarner Bay inside.

Above: upper level plan – click above for larger image

Idis Turato, the architect, having to face such a dominant landscape, attempts to explain his raison d’être behind it in the words of Buckminster Fuller,: “(…) The main question is how to control the space compassed; and subsequently how to develop selective control of compassed space (…)” How to simultaneously capture broadness, enable intimacy, while continuously standing on the edge in front of unobstructed views?

Above: roo plan – click above for larger image

Above: section – click above for larger image

The view of the house and the view from the house are in a constant clash of inclusion and exclusion. Beneath someone’s nest and cave we are able to observe the sculptural relationship between the landscape and the house (the other place).

Above: section – click above for larger image

On the other hand, when being inside it, we become beneficiaries of witnessing the subliminal beauty enabled by the controlled landscape frames – carefully planned axes and angles successfully separate the “initial resources from the final product” *.

Above: section – click above for larger image

The control over a spatial frame allows for “passionate uncertainties of thought”, regardless of whether we are the observers or the users and of which story we are telling.

The post Nest and Cave House
by Idis Turato appeared first on Dezeen.

Zaha Hadid Architects have designed two prototype villas for a site overlooking the historic town of Dubrovnik in Croatia.

The concepts, named “Rock” (top) and “Shell” (above), have been developed to help define the architectural style of the resort, which will eventually consist of 400 villas plus hotels and a golf course.

Above: Rock. Below: Shell.

See all our stories about Zaha Hadid Architects.

More spas on Dezeen »

Here’s some text from the architects:

Concept Design Report

Introduction

The brief called for the design of two prototype Villas for a new Golf and Spa Resort in Croatia overlooking the old town of Dubrovnik. The total development comprises 400 villas, two 5* hotels, luxury apartments, retail facilities, a spa and an 18 hole golf course including a golf resort club house.

A recently developed master plan determines the perimeter and size of the parcels, which range from 12,000m2 to 20,000m2. The site of the prototype villas is located at the edge of the plateau with picturesque views. The prototype villas shall define the overall architectural design of the resort.

Site

The area of development is located north of Dubrovnik, a Unesco World Heritage Site. The land comprises 430 hectare and is located on a high plateau approximately 300m to 400m above sea level, north of the old town of Dubrovnik.

At the southern edge of the project site, the terrain slopes steeply towards the sea. The terrain also slightly slopes from west to east. The elevated level of the site allows for magnificent views in all directions.

Towards south the owner will enjoy sea views and views of the old town of Dubrovnik. In north direction one can enjoy picturesque mountain and landscape views.

Design Concept Option Rock

Zaha Hadid Architects architectural proposal is a distinct and unique structure with a strong sense of identity and character.

It has a highly expressive, sculptural quality, infused with a sense of light and space. Light and views are the driving forces of the house.

Above: Rock – site plan. Click for larger image

The design is inspired by the Croatian karst topography. Typical karst elements such as sharp-edged cliffs, caves, dolines and sinkholes are adopted by our design.

Above: Rock – level -1. Click for larger image

Metaphorically speaking, the structure appears like a rock, which is partly sunken into the ground.

Above: Rock – level 0. Click for larger image

The seven bedroom house is designed as a three-level structure keeping the buildings profile low in sympathy to the surrounding landscaping and the old town of Dubrovnik.

Above: Rock – level 1. Click for larger image

The building is positioned at the very edge of the slope to take full advantage of the views. The park and garden area to the north will be used as recreation area and buffer zone to the existing village and the semi-public road.

Above: Rock – roof plan. Click for larger image

Design Concept Option Shell

Zaha Hadid Architects design offers long views internally and engages with the surrounding landscape. The prototype for this luxurious private residence has been developed in response to the programme, the landscape and the views.

Above: Rock – section. Click for larger image

The house was designed to be light and spacious with sliding doors giving access to external terraces and courtyards.

Above: Shell – site plan. Click for larger image

The private residence elongated curvilinear building shape is inspired by shell structures as they are found along the Croatian Coastline.

Above: Shell – level -1. Click for larger image

The seven bedroom house is designed as a three-level structure keeping the buildings profile low in sympathy to the surrounding landscaping and the old town of Dubrovnik.

Above: Shell – level 0. Click for larger image

The building is positioned at the very edge of the slope to take full advantage of the views. The park and garden area to the north will be used as recreation area and buffer zone to the existing village and the semi-public road.

Above: Shell – roof plan. Click for larger image

Golf and Spa Resort Dubrovnik

Location: Croatia, Dubrovnik 2009
Design: Zaha Hadid with Patrik Schumacher
Project Architect: Markus Planteu
Lead Designer: Thomas Mathoy

Above: Shell – section. Click for larger image

Project Team: Dennis Brezina, Ivan Ucros, Jesus Garate, Dimitris Akritopoulos, Muthahar Khan
Client: Razvoj Golf
Program: Residential

See also:

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Regium Waterfront by Zaha Hadid Architects	Symbiotic Villa by Zaha Hadid	Rabat Grand Theatre by Zaha Hadid Architects